Technology AI, Science and New Things
Two US scientists have won this year’s Nobel Prize in medicine for work from 1993. It was while studying a roundworm called C.elegans that Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun discovered microRNAs, tiny molecules that play an important role in gene regulation. The pair’s paper was initially met, said the Nobel Prize committee, with “almost deafening silence” from other scientists. But microRNAs are now seen as crucial in embryo development and in how the body responds to diseases like cancer. They’ve also been touted as biomarkers for degenerative illnesses such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Ambros and Ruvkun will share 11 million Swedish kronor, nearly double the 6.7 million they would have got had they won in 1993. Such is the passage of time and inflation, it works out pretty much the same.
